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Topic: zigbee support (Read 3866 times)

I realize that this is probably asking way too much but is thier any plans to support zigbee? I think I had asked before and hari said no. I realize its a ton of work but just curious if this could be done.

One of the strengths of LMCE is that it can support so many different protocols. Its what keeps me coming back vs going out and buying homeseer or control4.

The reason I ask is that I have a bunch of zwave sensors but thier are also some zigbee devices I would like but I cant use or support because they are zigbee only.

If not support exists does anyone know of a bridge. Would that be even feasible. I see that someone wrote a HAI bridge so I guess it might be possible. The only bridge I saw was from Bulogics but I think that is only for smartmetering.

I've had long discussions with Crestron and Control4 and AMX professionals, and have come to the conclusion that the various members of the Zigbee consortium don't WANT a computer that's not Crestron, AMX, Control4, etc, to be able to control ZigBee devices. The whole standard has been a shoddy slip-shot from the beginning, only recently gaining the equivalent of standardized command classes....but the simple truth is, that ZigBee computer interfaces for off the shelf computers do not exist.

I work for a company that recently put funding into Control4 and is now OEMing their product. I will ask internally if thier is anyway to get a controller or documentation. Its for internal use only and not for resale so it shouldnt violate any terms. If I can get one I will send it to hari.

Why would anyone want Zigbee when Z-Wave is readily available? Are there any devices which are Zigbee only?

Well I have to say we have looked at this numerous times since 2004 and Zigbee just does not stack-up either in technical terms (as Tschakee says) or commercially either. There are several OEM's building a very limited range of devices but none of them are interoperable with each other (ie vendor 'a' to vendor 'b') and they are not available to end-users anyway.

My appologies for jumping into your thread, but I have been doing a lot of research on the possibility of a Zigbee to Zwave bridge mainly because here in California PG&E is switching everyone to Smartmeters. I have Zwave controllers and it seems that bulogics is developing a bridge that would allow for monitoring the Zigbee feed and allow for Zwave to control (via Homeseer or someother controller) to make changes to your energy usage by changing HA conditions in your home. From bulogics:

"The Z-Wave to ZigBee Bridge can actually ask the Smart Grid questions and receive important information such as when a peak load event is happening, or when price changes will occur. This is valuable to consumers because they can “associate” certain appliances within the Z-Wave home ecosystem to automatically “turn off” during peak load times, when prices are at their highest. Conversely, it allows the Smart Grid to communicate with a Z-Wave home ecosystem, thus bridging the two technology standards together."

My appologies for jumping into your thread, but I have been doing a lot of research on the possibility of a Zigbee to Zwave bridge mainly because here in California PG&E is switching everyone to Smartmeters. I have Zwave controllers and it seems that bulogics is developing a bridge that would allow for monitoring the Zigbee feed and allow for Zwave to control (via Homeseer or someother controller) to make changes to your energy usage by changing HA conditions in your home. From bulogics:

"The Z-Wave to ZigBee Bridge can actually ask the Smart Grid questions and receive important information such as when a peak load event is happening, or when price changes will occur. This is valuable to consumers because they can “associate” certain appliances within the Z-Wave home ecosystem to automatically “turn off” during peak load times, when prices are at their highest. Conversely, it allows the Smart Grid to communicate with a Z-Wave home ecosystem, thus bridging the two technology standards together."

If anyone has any thoughts I would greatly appreciate your input!

Thanks!

Patrick

Well supporting specific ZWave<->Zigbee bridges is certainly possible and would sound like a worthwhile exercise in the case of the Smart Meters you mention. I expect in each case (as in this one in fact) that the Zigbee side of the bridge will be limited to communicating with the specific 'brand' of device it was designed for. But in this type of application thats not really an issue at all.

Definitely worth some effort if some has the inclination and access to the right hardware etc.

I am a bit of a techno geek but have spent the last 25 years in the Fire life safety business with Tyco, GE, Seimens and the like. My real interests are the on HA side of things - hobby as you will. I've been a Homeseer guy for about 11 years but I checked out your site and it looks very interesting.